


Fire Lilies

by Gold_Rain



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Basically Yue is Zuko’s platonic soulmate, Blue Spirit Zuko (Avatar), Chief Yue, F/F, F/M, Katara low key has a crush on Yue at first, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Platonic Soulmates, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Yue and Suki are bi and they love their himbo boyfriend, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, because she’s bi and who wouldn’t, dream-sharing, like so much casual treason, way too much treason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24938560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gold_Rain/pseuds/Gold_Rain
Summary: Yue was not an expert on dreams, but she was pretty sure she shouldn’t be randomly dreaming of firebenders when she herself had never even seen one.Nonetheless, Zuko was in every dream she had, every night, and Yue was absolutely and unexpectedly charmed.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Sokka/Suki/Yue (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar), Yue & Zuko (Avatar), Yue/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 23
Kudos: 302





	1. The Starting Line

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to apologize in advance for any poor writing on my part. I’m very tired.

When Yue was born, she was still and silent, the tiny rise and fall of her chest the only sign that she had not been born dead.

  
Many of her people assumed she would die. That she would slip away, small and frail and fleeting, like all the others before her had.

  
They had whispered many things about her, quietly, where no one could scold them for disrespect.

  
They whispered about how her mother would be devastated when her baby died, ensuring that she would never have a child of her own to raise and love.

  
About how the child’s father would have to remarry to ensure that his bloodline persisted and his place as chief remained unquestioned. 

  
About how it was so sad, that something so small would have to die, yet again, in the heart of winter, with eyes that never learned to see and a heart that never learned to love.

  
Her father, Arnook, held her for the first time, taking in her tiny face and her delicate, unmoving limbs. It wasn’t the first time he’d lost a child before their time, and he feared it wouldn’t be the last, but something about this one made his throat tighten and his eyes water. As if it was his first time losing a child at all.

  
Akari, his wife, seemed to be in a daze for the next couple of days. She had been recovering from childbirth, with strict orders to not get out of bed, and yet Akari couldn’t stop herself from getting up and going out into the freezing cold to stare up at the brightness of the moon.

  
One night she simply shook him awake, eyes wide with desperation. “She’s getting weaker, honey. I know what she needs. I know what we can do.”

  
She led him down to the spirit oasis with limbs that should’ve been weaker than they were and a baby in her arms that barely breathed at all. 

  
When they reached the edge of the pool, Arnook noticed, with a heavy heart, that somewhere on the walk to this place, his daughter had stopped breathing altogether. 

  
“Sweetheart.” he said in a tortured whisper. “Sweetheart, I think she’s gone.”

  
Akari looked down at the baby in her arms, and her face pinched up like she was trying not to cry. “It’s okay,” she told him, looking away, “I know how to fix this. The spirits told me what to do. I can fix this.”

  
She knelt down, careful and loving, and placed their child in the water.

  
For a moment there was nothing, and the only sound that was heard was the unsteady breathing of a husband and a wife. 

  
The only thing that was seen was a pair of parents and their child, who was still and cold in the water, looking like a drowning victim beneath the moon’s shine.

  
Then a cool glow erupted from the water that surrounded the infant’s small form, encasing her in shell of light.

  
Yue’s short black hair turned white, and her eyes blinked open, sparkling bright blue in the moonlight. 

  
A mark gleamed on her wrist, marking her as a daughter of the moon for the rest of her life.

•o0o•  
  
  


When Zuko was born, he came into the world whimpering rather than crying. He was smaller than most babies usually were, and some of the more superstitious midwives attributed it to the unlucky season he’d been born into.

  
The fire lilies weren’t in bloom yet. That was a sign of weak or nonexistent firebending. That simply wasn’t acceptable, for a member of the royal family. It made the people who lived in the palace nervous.

  
Nonetheless, the candles in the room had flickered and surged wildly, as if tormented by a wind that wasn’t present.

  
His mother, tired and aching, cradled him close and smiled through her pain. She had never felt a love like this. She hadn’t felt love at all, in a long time.

  
Ursa looked at her son, and she saw a healthy, miracle of a child, all wrapped up in soft red cloth, small and helpless and _perfect_.

  
When Ozai looked at his son, at his squirming limbs and pathetic whining, all he saw was weakness. Ozai had never liked weakness.

  
“He’s too small.” Ozai criticized when he was handed the boy. “You only truly had one job, Ursa. The least you could have done was keep him healthy.” 

  
Ozai has eyed his son, dissatisfied and resigned. “And he was born in the barren season. He’s probably a non-bender...”

  
“He may bend,” Ursa defended, a desperate look in her eyes as she weakly reached for the child that Ozai deliberately held out of her reach. “Give it time.”

  
“We are members of the royal family. We do not have time to wait and hope for him to bend. We can have no one doubt the superior nature of my family, Ursa.” His eyes were bored, uncaring. “How can we do that with a non-bender for a son?”

  
Zuko will not remember what happened after that, but to be fair, no one that young remembers much of anything. He will forget the flames that licked his skin and made him scream. He will forget the searing heat and the fear that clouded his head.

  
Princess Ursa, though, will never be able to forget the way her son looked when he was set on fire.

  
When Zuko stopped crying and flailing they thought he was dead. Ursa had been softly crying while the midwives looked on in shock and horror. Ozai had felt nothing.

  
The flames died, leaving the smell of burned flesh in every nose and the echo of a dying child’s screams in every ear.

  
Then, the boy’s tiny chest moved up, and down, and up again, and when his eyes opened, they were a bright, molten gold. 

  
His flesh was healthy again, pink and soft and untouched aside from the sun symbol that now rested below the corner of his left eye.

  
•o0o•

Zuko was five years old, and his world was a gigantic field of fire lilies, sprawling out as far as the eye could see. Their vibrant petals blurred into the bright orange and red of the sunset that was frozen in the sky. There were no buzzing insects to plague him. There was, in fact, no sound at all.

He decided this was okay, since he’d never really liked bugs anyway, and got up on his tiny legs to explore. He dug holes in the dirt, searching for worms (he never found any, sadly) and wove flower stems into necklaces like his mother had taught him to do.

He wished he could bring the flower necklaces out of his dream. This batch was his best one yet, and if he could bring them home with him, he could give some to Lu Ten! Then maybe he could convince him to teach him how to fight with swords!

These activities were only fun for a short while. Zuko didn’t know why his dream was lasting this long, and he probably should’ve been worried about getting home by now. 

The dream just marched on, hazy and warm and happy like only a dream could be, unconcerned by the real world, disconnected from it’s problems. 

Zuko’s boredom made him instantly aware of when things began to shift. His fingers twitched when the grass he held in his hand turned cold and started to wither. His gaze caught on the sky as colors began to drain from it, as pale white clouds poured over the horizon and smothered the sun.

The biggest change, though, was when white started to fall from the sky. 

At first, Zuko thought it might’ve been ash. 

Whenever something burned back home, ash was left behind, light enough to scatter itself when the wind blew.

But ash wasn’t cold to the touch, and so he watched as it fell from the sky in a steady rain, pelting the earth and sprinkling Zuko’s hair with white. 

He reached out to touch one of the flakes, and he gasped aloud when it melted in his hand. 

Was this snow? Was this what coated the poles? And...why was he dreaming of snow in the first place?

His thoughts were interrupted by a ripple in the air to his left. The world seemed to tilt and bend, stretching and pulling in the vague shape of a small person.

A moment passed, and he could see her more clear than anything he could see in this dreamworld.

It was a girl. She was small, like him, with shining blue eyes and white hair that seemed bright enough to rival the moon.

Zuko jumped back, startled, even in his dazed state, by her sudden appearance. “Whoa! What are you doing here?” He was fairly sure he’d never seen someone that looked like her before, so why was he dreaming of her?

The girl looked confused, and she tilted her head, eyes glittering. “I’m sorry...who are you?”

Zuko gaped at her, unsure what to do.

•o0o•  
  


“Mama?” Yue’s big blue eyes met her mother’s, and the woman automatically steeled herself to reject her daughter if she asked for another helping of stew.   
  


This winter was shaping up to be worse than their last, and food would most likely become much scarcer in the weeks to come. She couldn’t afford to waste it all in a few days, although she knew they were all hungry.

“Yes, sweetie?” Akari smiled tiredly, trying to appear stronger than she actually was. It simply wouldn’t do to worry Yue. She had enough on her plate already.

The her illness had worsened over the past week, and for most of the day she’d been in bed with a fever. She had gotten out of bed just a few hours before, feeling well enough to eat, which was a rare thing since she’d first gotten sick.

“Mama...I met a boy who made fire in my dreams last night.”

Akari stiffened at first, alarmed at the word ‘fire,’ but relaxed when Yue explained it had been a dream. 

  
“That’s nice, dear. Did he say anything to you?”

“Yeah,” her beautiful daughter said, blinking innocently up at her mother. “He said he was a prince of the fire nation. Isn’t that weird?”


	2. Little Things

Yue grew up slowly and steadily, and every day felt like another link to a chain dragging her down and making her sink—like another tiny crater in her skin to add to thousands.

Her parents were protective of her, and she could tell some days they didn’t think she was real. They would look at her like she would disappear if they touched her, eyes wide and desperate, full of an old pain that hasn’t yet left them. It hurt to look at them, when they got like that.

The other children she was allowed to play with were mostly the kids of her parents’ friends, or her cousins. They were all normal children—really, they were. But they gawked at her like she was a spirit and she never knew how to handle that.

And so, all her interactions with them were stilted and clumsy. She didn’t know why she was so afraid of them, and she didn’t know why she didn’t understand them like they understood each other.

Eventually, she stopped trying to understand altogether, and most of her days were spent alone, reading anything she could get her hands on and practicing healing much more often than was mandatory for a waterbender of her age and station.

Yue asked questions. Of course she did, she was an inquisitive and intelligent child, after all. But the questions she asked rapidly diverged from the ‘why is the sky blue’ territory and into ‘why can’t I learn how to fight with my bending like some of my cousins are’ and no one ever knew how to tell her the truth without sounding harsh.

But the reality of it all was harsh, and even if their words were sweet, the underlying truth in her society and life was unbelievably bitter.

She had to learn to heal because that was her place as a girl and eventual woman. She had to learn to cook because someday she’d have to marry a man and feed him and her children. She’d have to hold her tongue if she was angry, because no one cared what she said, anyway, and nothing in the world was going to change.

(She didn’t know what she was saying, anyway. She was just a little girl, and all little girls went through a phase like this at least once in their lives. She’d learn.)

Yue got quieter and quieter as the years went by, when it became apparent that no one would listen to her.

She took to reading aloud in the spirit oasis, grinning and laughing at the koi fish, gesturing wildly at them as she explained the material, both fiction and nonfiction alike. 

It was therapeutic, to be heard and not scolded for having thoughts of her own, even if the reason for that was her listeners being fish, and therefore being unable to voice any of their complaints.

Well...she did have one other spot of light in her life. A real, genuine connection in a sea of opposing forces.

He was shorter than her, with a soft but prideful nature, with odd, foreign features, like skin that looked just a few shades away from snow. And he was, perhaps, her only true friend in the entire world.

“It was awful, Yue! They made Kaji into a joke, Yue! And they gave him a random love interest for no reason!” He gesticulated wildly, hands constantly fluttering about with nervous energy. His face was tinted red from rage, to Yue’s endless amusement.

Yue fought to keep her expression neutral. It was a testament to her years of practice that she was able to do so. A smile kept trying to fight it’s way onto her lips and a cackling laugh was caught somewhere behind her tongue.

Although, maybe she was being completely too obvious and Zuko was just easily fooled.

That may have been it.

“Did your mother like it?” She asked him, finally cracking a smile when he started to shake his head vigorously.

“She kept trying to say it wasn’t that bad and that I’m being dramatic, but we BOTH know them making _Homura_ a side character and flattening Maki’s motivations was the last straw.”

Yue threw back her head and laughed, her small fingers still fidgeting with the flower-crown she was making. It was full of different flowers than fire lilies this time, and it was now bursting with baby’s breath and forget-me-nots.

It had taken a little bit of time for them to change their dreamscape at will, but the moment they figured out how, Zuko went straight to showing her all kinds of different plants, at her behest.

“I wish we had more plays back home,” Yue admitted softly. “Then maybe I’d understand why you like them so much.”

Zuko’s scowl melted into a thoughtful expression, and he twisted a blade of grass in his hands absentmindedly. “Y’know, if we ever meet—“

“ _When_.” She corrected, because there was no way she was _not_ going to meet her soulmate.

“ _When_ we meet,” he rolled his eyes fondly. “We can go see a play. Or we could put one on together!” 

“I look forward to seeing a play with you then.” She said, leaving no room for argument. Yue was shy enough as it was, and performing in front of a bunch of strangers would most likely be the end of her dignity.

Zuko deflated slightly, and smiled, more out of sadness than anything else. “I wish it were easier.” He told her, taking her hand. “I wish I could just ask to go see you and I could just sail away.”

“But wouldn’t you miss home?”

“Of course I would.” Zuko sighed, looking away. “But...maybe I’d feel...freer, if I left. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so trapped.”

“I get that.” And she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Does this platonic pairing make any sense whatsoever?  
> Absolutely not.  
> Will that stop me from writing about them and adoring them?  
> Absolutely fucking not.


End file.
